Small-town Kellie Pickler living a big dream

Friday

Jan 12, 2007 at 12:01 AM

BY ANTHONY VIOLANTISTAR-BANNER

OCALA - She was a skating waitress at Sonic, loves grilled cheese and chicken wings and has no reservations about bringing her concert tour to the Paddock Mall.
"Are you kidding? What better place for this girl to be than the mall?" Kellie Pickler said in a telephone interview this week. "Put me in a shoe store and I'm good to go. I'm a shoe fanatic. I have a shoe addiction but if that's the worse thing I'm addicted to, then I'll take it."
So it goes for Kellie Picker, who last year made it to the final six on "American Idol," charmed a nation and is about to earn a gold record for her country music debut album, "Small Town Girl," which has sold nearly 500,000 copies in the past three months.
Pickler is coming to Ocala's Paddock Mall at 6 p.m. Monday for a free concert. A huge crowd is expected for a 20-year old rising country music star with cross-generational appeal.
Some might label her a "ditzy blonde," but this down-home Southern belle from Albemarle, N.C., is ditzy like a fox.
"I can deal with the ditzy blonde comments and all that," Pickler said. "I've been called worse."
What matters to Pickler is that she is "living my dream and doing what I love. If I can sing and touch people with my music, then I feel blessed. Success hasn't changed me. Inside, I'm still the same roller-skating waitress at Sonic. Your job doesn't make you what you are. That comes from the heart."
Pickler is that rare combination of beauty, personality, zaniness and likability. Her appeal seems universal, from doting grandmothers who want to hug and take her home to redneck guys who want to take her out for a beer.
In an entertainment industry filled with generic-looking and -sounding performers, something about Pickler stands out.
She's the girl next door who cracks you up.
"I just say what's on my mind. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to other people, and sometimes it doesn't make sense to me," Pickler said. "I don't always think about what I say before I say it, but I think we're all guilty of that."
Such is the essence of Kellie Pickler. The charm is that she is able to laugh at herself.
"I've always been the butt of the joke," she said. "I knew if I was telling the joke or it was being told to me, I was the one to be laughed at. I don't mind, I love making people smile."
It's rare for a celebrity to be so self-effacing. And for Pickler's fans, that's part of the attraction.
"She's cute as a button and she just touches people with her personality," said Penny Lofton, a local "American Idol" fan. "There's something different about Kellie. She's very down to earth."
But it takes more than that to sell records and get people out to concerts.
"I think Kellie has this quirkiness about her," Lofton said. "It's what makes people fall in love with her."
Despite her sunny disposition and sense of humor, Pickler has had a rough life.
She was abandoned by her teenage mother while an infant, and her father spent much of her life in prison, due to what she has called his problems with drugs and alcohol.
Pickler was raised by her grandparents, Clyde Pickler Sr. and Faye Pickler.
"I could have had it so much worse," Pickler said. "I could have been raised in foster care. I could have easily chose a path to drugs. I was lucky to have my grandparents. They gave me what I needed."
In a way, the childhood made Kellie tougher.
"I don't think you should rely on other people," she said. "I've never really been able to depend on anyone."
After high school, Pickler competed in beauty and talent contests and worked at jobs like serving people at Sonic.
Once again, it was a learning experience.
"Working at Sonic helped prepare me for the next part of my life," Pickler said. "I learned communication skills and how to get along with every type of person.
"When you work as a waitress, you have to deal with nice and nasty people. The one thing you remember is: the customer is always right, even when they are wrong."
Those days are long gone, and Pickler has a new set of goals.
"It's not about selling albums; it's about reaching people with my music," she said. She also has a role model in Dolly Parton.
"She's the biggest influence for me," she said. "She's incredible; she writes songs, sings, entertains and does television and film. She's just so honest, perky and beautiful. Dolly Parton is the whole package, and I want to be just like her."
Pickler is already looking to television and working on a proposed sitcom for the Fox network.
Now, though, Pickler is content with completing what seems to be her own Cinderella story. She has yet to totally reconcile with her parents, but has come to terms with herself.
"It's taken me 20 years, but for once in my life I'm actually happy with what I see when I look in the mirror," Pickler said in an uncharacteristic soft voice. "You know, I'm happy with who I am and what I'm about. Life is good."
Anthony Violanti can be contacted at 867-4154 or anthony.violanti@starbanner.com